My son is 9 and can barely kick a ball.

[FootballFandango]

My son is the.laziest child I've ever met. He even complains about walking the dog. His lack of physical motivation has always been a bone of contention...despite judo sailing cricket tennis and all sorts of other activities that I've tried him on, generally a term at a time. We try to instill discipline and robustness in our children and ourselves but he has always actively hated football.

His school is v sporty and he is the only boy in his class left out of an upcoming football fixture (there are 3 classes so I'm sure he won't be alone).

But I think at 9 he is definitely too old to do beginners football classes.... We can afford 1 to 1 football coaching but despite the fact that he is devastated about being left out, I can't see him actively participating... Even in a coaching session.. Yet he is too young to write himself off as being unsporty. It's obviously only going to further erode his confidence unless I sort out his attitude but that is v difficult.

Has anybody else had a child like this, did you turn it around and do beginner classes exist for football at his age?

@GunpowderGelatine don't put yourself through it! No need, it'll only backfire and you'll get arthritis or something. If we were meant to run we would do it without effort

So have you read the numerous posts saying it's precisely the pressure and your worry that is the problem? Stop forcing him to try new sports, it's entirely counterproductive. Take the pressure off and he'll come to enjoy exercise on his terms, not yours. And find a school where he isn't socially isolated for not being sporty. Like I said, my 9yo can't kick a ball to save his life but has a great group of friends. It's not an inevitability that not liking football should mean social isolation.

"surely surely surely it's not normal to barely move once you get home from school." Really, what did you do when you got in from work/school at 16/18/20 etc?

Poor kid. You're the one making him feel left out

You sound awful. Why not try encouraging the things your son does like and making sure he knows that football is not the be all and end all? Because it's not. As he gets older there will be tons more things he might like that will be a route into a social environment that may be a happier place for him.

Some people don't like sport. It's not a character defect. It's just what it is. If you want him to be more active, you need to find something he does enjoy.

I have a 13 year old who hates all sport. She can barely catch a ball, can just about ride a bike and can only just swim. It's OK. She is a great dancer, loves yoga and has recently discovered that she's pretty good at longer sprint distances. She's never going to be good at hockey or netball or lacrosse. And her dad spent years trying to get the poor kid to play ball games with him but she just doesn't like it. I think it damaged their relationship a bit.

You need to start finding out what kind of physical activity your child might actually enjoy. And also encouraging him in the things he already loves. My non-sporty daughter is a wonderful singer, she writes amazing stories and poems, she has a thirst for learning, she is interested in politics and art and literature and music. These are all just as valuable as sport and it is not compulsory to like sports! I feel a bit sorry for your son. Why no try supporting him in the things he actually likes?

DS1 is 14, he does have ASD. He enjoys pacing back and forth to the fridge, running up and down hills and jumping up and down laughing at YouTube. Loathes walking and team sports. He does really enjoy the fitness suite at school which I think is gym equipment. Mainstream PE all went rather wrong so he does just the gym now, he has EHCP.

DS2 (12) is a terrible over-thinker, we did private swimming lessons to get him going there. He "retired" from bike riding abruptly at 6, but after seeing DS3 whizzing about, taught himself again this year.

He has issues with stamina, but has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. He prefers badminton to football. He was keen on tennis for a while in primary.

@GunpowderGelatine
Yes.
He. Is. Totally. Inactive.
Would anybody be OK with that?

It's quite frustrating that most of you seem to think that I'm some pushy bastard of a parent when I'm worried about my child. When I don't think it's at all healthy to never move behind the basics.

When my son is telling me he feels upset and isolated because he hates football. And yet, I'm some ogre for trying to encourage him to give it a go. He's at school for almost another decade, he can hardly avoid anything organised can he? Its a bloody fact of life.

Of course he's tried various things, isn't that a part of growing up? I haven't bothered to mention the non sports related stuff he's done.

You say he says ' I don't like moving' . Have you actually had him checked at a GP or with a rheumatologist? My eldest is hypermobile and apart from dance this is her. It hurts her ankles and knees to do sport and then she has the most horrendous restless legs after it. My nephew who is 12 has just been diagnosed with juvenile arthritis in his knees, he was always saying he didn't like sport as didn't like the way it made him move. He was too young to articulate it was uncomfortable for him to do so.

Mine is similarly not naturally active but walks a few miles daily going to and from school. And will join in things like hiking with Scouts (worth a try if he wants to belong to something?). Also as far as joining in goes, we have encouraged music instead.

Crusty I didn't approach them, it was one of the discussions at parents' evening. He got the poorest grade for effort at sport and we were discussing how to encourage him to make the connection between effort and attainment. The teachers said it's a realisation some kids make sooner than others.

I don't see that as any different from other things he wants to attain like to draw a comic strip or to build a huge lego set - all these things take effort, and so if he wants to play on a football team, he needs to figure out for himself that he needs to put in some effort to get an outcome he desires. I don't give a shit what that outcome is, I will support him with anything he wants to achieve - art, drama, academic work, ballet, swimming, building the Harry Potter castle, gardening, whatever. But right now, it's football, and he wants someone to wave a magic wand to make him a good player while he makes no effort at all.

I do remember DS2 getting in a right tizz at being invited to a football party as he wasn't good at football. About 9 or 10. He went and had a great time, but I think football can create a bit of a ? Hierarchy maybe not the right word. But along those lines.

WTAF? What’s his inner / intellectual life like? Yes, some kids do hate all sports at that age and nothing bad happens to them as a result.

DS2 does support a football team and followed leagues etc so could hold his own in football chat, which I think was a help socially. But he went to a small primary and his friends were heavily into football.

Was (and still am) a hearty loather of all forms of sport. Wasn’t an unduly active kid. As an adult I’ve found the things I do like doing (hiking, jogging, yoga) and I do them. As a kid I hated everything around PE as it was then called. If you were an unsporty child who didn’t get picked for teams it was humiliating even though I didn’t want to be in a team. I’d imagine your DS feels very alone if he is arty in a sporty school. He might want to fit in just to, well, fit in if sport is everyone’s ‘club’. And maybe his not wanting to move is a bit of rebellion? You sound anxious that you and his dad are ‘geeks’ and he may be too - nowt wrong with geeky but were you bullied or criticised for it when younger? If so, I can see why you want your DS’s life to be different. If he were in a different environment more suited to his interests, you might find he’s more active as well. I do wonder what he can gain from being in a school that makes him a square peg in a round hole.

But if you've signed him up to term-long sessions of all sorts of different sports (you mentioned judo, cricket, sailing, tennis 'and many others'! And he's only 9!), can you not see that he's going to see that as pressure? I have signed my kids up to precisely zero sports, and though they really are not sporty kids (and certainly don't willingly exercise after school!) without my prompting in the last year they have developed a keen interest in climbing. And DD in yr7 has signed up to hockey after school. Nothing to do with me. But I can guarantee that if I'd signed them up to everything you've mentioned between reception and yr5, they'd have run for the hills. It may not be tiger parenting, but I think your worry is definitely not helping here. Liken it to a food battle with a toddler - if they are not minded to eat, then the more you force it in, the more they are going to clamp their lips shut.

Your son would probably be a lot happier if you could find it in your heart to tell him that football doesn't actually matter and there are tons of other things he can do to be healthy now and later on in life instead of focusing on it as the only route into social acceptance.

I don't think there's anything wrong with being totally inactive tbh, unless you mean he has no interest in anything rather than being physically inactive? I was never a sporty kid - at 9 I did get named as the child who had taken the most books out of the library in one term though and I've made a very successful career out of writing. And along the way I have found the physical activities I like, and am slim and healthy etc. Unless he is actually suffering physically ie putting on a lot of weight yes I do think you should accept he is an introverted artist - and really that shouldn't be about "accepting"! People tend to a lot more professionally with their "inactive" talents than they do with the team sports they were good at at school.

I also think it can be discouraging if you go to a sporty school and you aren't a typical sporty kid - I did for a while and they often just tend to invest in the ones who are already good/will achieve for the school team, rather than encourage children to explore. Left to their own devices most people do take up some physical activity they enjoy in the end though.

OP, I think you need to carefully separate out "Getting exercise/moving about" versus "Sport" versus "Social participation" in your mind here. Because they are three quite different things.

It's completely reasonable to require that he does physical exercise in some shape or form--that's on par with going to bed at a proper time, limiting screen time, eating properly etc.

Sport, on the other hand? Some people like sport, some hate every sport, some like certain things but not others. No parent has a right to make children play sports, IMO. And frankly, a lot of sports don't actually provide very much exercise, especially to those who aren't very good at them. Kids who hate cricket and are forced to play anyway, will just stand uselessly about. It's a waste of time.

Agree with others, you need to get out for family walks and bike rides. If he moans, make it clear to him that he is required to take part anyway, and that "it's either this, or you need to propose another physical activity that you WOULD like to do, I'm afraid". As a parent, it's fine to require exercise.

I know it's tough to deal with a kid who doesn't want to move and whines about it.... I don't have any magical solutions here, though, other than to point out that it's just part of the job of being a parent! (I have a daughter who did not want to swim or ride a bike for the longest time, both non negotiable as far as I am concerned. It was exhausting, but she finally got over it and now does both).

You really really need to drop this focus on team sports and especially football. Team sports are torture on those who aren't good at sport. And football is the absolute worst sport to try and get an unsporty older child into--it is so popular that some kids will have been coached and trained since they were three years old!

If you do want him to do an activity of some kind, it will most likely need to be something solitary, non-competitive or both. Geocaching, climbing...? Forget traditional ideas about sportiness and think in terms of "moving about."

You mentioned "Every time he is not picked"--if the school is allowing kids to pick teams, they need to be approached about this and told that this is not OK. It's bullying, it's lazy PE practice and it makes a lot of children hate the very idea of exercise.

Re the social participation thingthe fact that most of the boys in his class are into football? That's hard, but if he is useless at football and doesn't want to do it, then forcing him to make a fool of himself on a team is not exactly going to improve his standing. Perhaps there are other out of school activities that he might enjoy doing instead. If the school is so hyper focused on football, it might not be the best place for himwould a move be feasible? That said, things will most likely get better at secondary. As a PP said, some boys will continue to be into football, some will not, and in the bigger social environment of the average secondary there is a lot more room for different kids to find their own "kind."

I think the OP and I are dealing with something slightly more extreme that a lot of posters on here are imagining. I've seen suggestions on here to forget about football and just go for a walk or a family bike ride, I suspect for the OP as for me that either of those suggestions cause huge giant screaming wobblies or just flat toddler-style refusal. He's too big to just pick up, and he's too old to need bribery with chocolate buttons every 5th tree.

Xiaoxiong, it’s OP’s openly hostile attitude to her son that is concerning PPs.

Kokeshi you say your daughter just "got over it", how?? Just time? I swear I am losing the will to live, Saturday was a new low - DS1 wailed and screamed at me for ages before he finally gave up and walked, eyes brimful and lip wobbling, about 10 meters behind us all the way round. You would have thought it was a stage of the Long March rather than a 20 minute stroll by the river. The poor dog hates all the fuss too.

I would consider dyspraxia or hyper mobility - or, as a potentially simpler fix, get his vitamin D levels tested. I was that child. I’ve napped every day of my life and found physical activity while not impossible to be just “blah”. Despite the jokes I endured from my family, as an adult I found out there’s something actually wrong with me. Wish my parents had taken me to the GP at 10!

I don't think it's normal to dislike all movement. I think it's worth checking out.

I had a friend whose kid wasn't into sport. She thought he was arty and sensitive, but no, he just needed glasses. Once he could see, he loved sport.

Your son isn't in that category, I know, but all the 9 year old boys I know love running around, even the uncoordinated ones. Maybe it's anaemia or something with his joints? No idea really, sorry.

Aunty I just don't see any hostility from OP towards her son? She has a son gone to bed in floods of tears who wants to be better at football, and yet is so averse to any physical effort he won't learn to ride a bike. She's not berating him for his failures, his sadness is coming from him feeling left out. Absent an issue like junior arthritis or hyper mobility or any of the other suggestions on this thread (which she should check and I am going to investigate for my DS as well in fact), there is no reason he can't acquire at least some basic skills IF he puts in some effort. But he needs to realise that.

What about a trampoline, might he enjoy that?

You need to seperate out the two issues.

Your son feels isolated because he's at a school that focuses on the one thing he dislikes and so his peers are less interested in being his friend.
Does he have ANY friends? Inside Pro ut of school. Can he do a class around his actual interests outside of s ho to meet kindred spirits?

He hates physical activity
How is his Diet and weight? How active are you and Dad? Is he smart enough to understand a reasoned chat with you about why we exercise and get him to suggests what he'd be wilking to do.
Family time outdoors catching Pokeman or walking somewhere to draw? If he moans, tough.
Coukd have any medical issues that have been missed?